


Avery is the Best Person Ever

by lancesexual (Badgers)



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Assassin Keith, Assassins & Hitmen, Blood and Gore, I decided to post it because otherwise it's just sitting around, I'm probably gonna leave it like this but I'm also thinking about keeping on with it, It's been a long time since I've read through this, M/M, Mild Gore, Prince Lance (Voltron), So idk lmao, but it's not that bad tbh, shrug emoji
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-02-18
Updated: 2019-02-18
Packaged: 2019-10-30 19:54:18
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,770
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17835113
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Badgers/pseuds/lancesexual
Summary: “Don’t try to speak, either. We don’t want to… exacerbate the injury.”You tried to kill me, Keith wanted to say, to scream. He opened his mouth again but Lance’s hand was like lightning, moving to cover his lips, pressing his head down into his pillow and squeezing his jaw tightly shut.“Shh,” He said, “It’s okay. I know you don’t have much energy, so I’ll do all the talking.”----Did anyone ask for an assassin/prince au??? no??





	Avery is the Best Person Ever

**Author's Note:**

  * For [gringle](https://archiveofourown.org/users/gringle/gifts).



> Titled like this because I asked for name suggestions and that's what I got
> 
> I don't have much to say tbh. This has been sitting around for over two years and I didn't want it hiding any longer. I really hope you like it, but if you don't, that's okay too. Please leave a comment if you can, it'd be really nice. 
> 
> (this work is for avery ig, even tho she took literally nine whole minutes to answer me asking her ao3 the fucking dick)

He was wearing a red suit, tailored perfectly, with a single sprig of honeysuckle, a small burst of white, pinned artfully to his lapel. Colour in the room, where so many men were black and white, that drew eyes like moths to candle flame that no one could resist, not even Keith, standing where he was dressed so sternly, compared to this sight. The man wore a mask the same colour of his tie, a deep red that sat like blood on his dark skin, and did absolutely nothing to hide his eyes. Keith was too far away to guess their colour, but they were sharp, and narrow, and stunning. The entire affair was made even more theatrical by the flourishing grace of the stranger. His every gesture, a performance. 

 

With the shifting crowd and sea of colours, it should’ve been more difficult for Keith to keep track of him, but the bright red of his suit, his long limbs, his curled lips, they were easy for Keith to follow. No one else in the room commanded that kind of attention, so Keith let his attention be commanded, submitted to its master and followed that ethereal man around the ballroom, quietly, and without fanfare. Until he managed, with a laugh to a small crowd and a kiss to a stranger’s cheek, to slip away. Then Keith got closer. 

 

Down a dark hall to a balcony with glass doors, curtains pulled up on either side of them to expose the view - a snowy night, a marble balcony, and a tall man in a red suit with weary shoulders. Keith opened the left door, and went outside after him. 

 

The burst of chilly wind around his face and middle made him want to huddle, but he fought against it as he walked closer, and stood tall as the attention of this man twisted away from the sticky, snowy pathway the view afforded him, and fluttered up to Keith. His eyes were Blue. 

 

Neither of them spoke for as long as it took Keith to reach the edge of the balcony, his hands resting on cold, snow-damp stone as he settled his own gaze far away, while the other kept his eyes on only Keith. 

 

“I knew someone was watching me,” He said, his voice as soft as the air around them, settling over Keith just as coldly, “I didn’t think it would be someone so… pretty.”

 

“I’m flattered,” Keith said, and he was. 

 

“I know. Why are you following me?”

 

Keith chanced a quick look over, where the man’s eyes were sparkling as they drank him in, his lips once again curled into a smile, his shoulders straight as though he hadn’t been out here slumped down like a crushing weight sat on his back. Effortlessly lovely, one might think. Keith returned the smile, though more subdued, and reached into his jacket pocket, savouring the brief warmth until his fingers closed around the icy handle of a gun. 

  
  


“We both know why, Mr. Espinosa.”

 

Sharp movement had him drawing out the weapon as quickly as he could. He barely had it aimed in the man’s direction before there was a sharp pain at his jugular, and Mr. Espinosa - Lance - was holding a knife tightly against his throat, Keith’s gun aimed at his heart. 

 

“You’d be dead before you could even move,” Keith warned. 

 

“Maybe, but shoot me, my body jerks, and you lose the skin of your throat, don’t you?”

 

Yet another shift of character had taken place, it seemed to Keith. Lance’s body was stiff and rigid as a coiled predator, much like Keith’s own, ready to pounce at the first movement. He’d certainly catch it, too, if Keith tried anything. Those blue eyes were unflinching, trained on his person. The knife pressed harder against his throat. It stung, and Keith knew it’d drawn blood. 

 

“Who knew the prince could fight so dirty?”

 

“Drop your gun.”

 

The wind picked up around them, sending snowflakes dancing in a flurry between them. The skin around Lance’s eyes was a dark plum colour, stained by the cold, surely, while the wetness to his eyes must’ve been from his unblinking stare. His hands were shaking, and Keith immediately made the mistake of thinking it was because he was scared, and wouldn’t be able to fight back should Keith make a move. 

 

He did. 

 

Keith grabbed for the knife with his free hand, and the moment his hand closed around Lance’s wrist, Lance jerked his hand back, and the blade sliced cleanly through the skin of Keith’s neck, sending an alarming, wet heat spreading down his chest and saturating his clothes.

 

He raised his gun and fired, but he was shit with a gun on a good day, and clutching his throat stumbling away from his target, he was very unlikely to get in a hit. Lance crowded his way into Keith’s space and ripped the gun from his grip, then placed his hand around the wound he’d given Keith and shoved him up against the guardrail. His hands were still shaking, and now Keith was positive that that, too, was only from the cold. 

 

“I’m getting kind of tired of half assed assassination attempts,” Lance told him. Keith couldn’t answer, could barely swallow through the pain. “If you’re going to try to kill me, you could at least do it well. Why did you let me know you were here? Why did you give me the chance to fight back? To attack you?” 

 

His fingers slipped against his throat, covered in blood and losing their grip, so Keith pushed away, and ended up on his knees. Large drops of blood fell loudly onto the marble floor, bouncing slightly off the snow that’d already settled there. His vision was getting blurry. 

 

“Were you really sent here to kill me?” Lance asked, “If you were, you could’ve done it at any time. So why wait? Why now? Why tell me beforehand? Are you really that cocky, or did you want me to catch you?”

 

Keith started to crawl away, trying in vain to stopper the wound, shoving his collar so tightly against the gash he was choking himself. He could only see vague shapes and spots now, could barely hold himself up. In the snow, there were a pair of shoes -- expensive and red. They didn’t move when he collapsed. 

  
  


* * *

  
  


The scene was still vivid on the backs of his eyelids. A snowy night, a red suit against the grey-white of the evening, a burst of colour against the marble, blood, pain, blue eyes. It was playing in his head when he opened his eyes, and then a sudden shock of white and he knew it was over. He was somewhere else now, and he was alive. 

 

His throat burned. When he moved, he could feel the scratch of medical tape on his neck, the heat of layers of bandage confining his swollen skin, the steady sounds of equipment hooked up to every free space on his body. He swallowed and it felt like he was trying to force down glass. 

 

He tried to sit up, but a hand appeared from nowhere. Dark skin, long fingers, firm where they forced him back down. 

 

“Don’t move,” Lance said, “You’re still hurt.”

 

Keith’s entire body went tense. “Lance,” He tried to gasp, but all that came out was a terrible wheeze. His eyes followed the hand up an arm to a shoulder, and then there was his face, unobscured by a mask. Beautiful and dark, those Blue eyes still icy and wild - like a winter storm. His smile made Keith feel like he was being hunted. 

 

“Don’t try to speak, either. We don’t want to… exacerbate the injury.”

 

_ You tried to kill me _ , Keith wanted to say, to scream. He opened his mouth again but Lance’s hand was like lightning, moving to cover his lips, pressing his head down into his pillow and squeezing his jaw tightly shut. 

 

“Shh,” He said, “It’s okay. I know you don’t have much energy, so I’ll do all the talking.”

 

Keith could feel his heartbeat through every inch of his skin, his breathing loud against Lance’s hand and drumming through his ears as fast as his blood pulsed, hyperfocused on the sweat between them and the pain in his throat. What exactly was going on? He should be dead. One of them should be dead. Lance shouldn’t be here, sitting over his hospital bed, treating him so gently. The behaviour he displayed was startling soft, even if the hand stroking up and down his arm felt like a threat. 

 

“You tried to kill me,” Lance began, unknowingly echoing Keith’s thoughts. His tone was casual and calm, “On my birthday, of all days. That’s really rude of you, Keith.” At Keith’s startled look, his smile curled cruelly, “Yeah, I know who you are. Now we’re even.”

 

Shiro was going to be so fucking mad. 

 

Lance’s hand tightened on his jaw, enough that it started to hurt. “Pay attention. I was going to let you bleed out, but between you and me, I’ve never killed anyone, not even indirectly, and I don’t really want that on my conscience. Plus, you don’t seem like any other S-class assassin I’ve ever known - not that I know very many. Why didn’t you kill me?”

 

In the back of his mind, behind his abject terror and discomfort with his vulnerable situation, Keith had a brief thought of consternation. Of all the targets to be stuck with, to be interrogated by, it had to be one that never stopped talking. 

 

Lance seemed like he was waiting, and Keith couldn’t exactly remind him he couldn’t speak, so he just stared the other down, let himself watch those blue eyes and wait for a thought to spark behind them. In Lance’s defense, it was less than a minute before he seemed to realize his error, and laughed. 

 

The sound was like bells in his ears. 

 

“Sorry, here,” He said, and offered up a pen and yellow tablet. Keith reached up weakly to take them. Then, quick as a flea, aimed the pen at Lance’s throat. He missed. 

 

“Alright, none of that,” Lance said sternly, his grip like iron on Keith’s wrist, his other hand still digging roughly into Keith’s jaw. “I’m gonna let you go so you can try again. Tell me why I’m not dead right now. Even just then, you could’ve stabbed me fast enough. I’m royalty, you’re a trained assassin.”

 

Exasperated, when Keith was freed, he actually wrote something down this time. 

 

_ ‘We all have off days.’ _

 

Lance snorted. 

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you so much for reading


End file.
